Some Things Never Change
by skittlestars
Summary: Things come and go. Rock the boat. But there are some things that never change.Oneshot.


A season finale fic. Spoilers below, so if you have not watched it, I recommend clicking back. Tiva somewhere between friendship and romance. Long, but if you stick it out to the end, you get a kind of sweet ending for Tony, back to being Tony.

Some Things Never Change

Tony DiNozzo hated desk clean-up. He didn't just hate it, if it was a perp, it'd be on it's way to the morgue, the nasty remains resembling a scrambled Greasy Burger left to Ducky, Palmer, and Abby to make sense of.

God...did he really think that? Could he... Tony sighed and bit his lip. Just a couple months ago, he might have said it out loud, left it out for McGee to groan at, Gibbs to give an exaggerated roll of the eyes, Abby to grin, and Ziva to give a small reserved chuckle, catching his eyes with that magic sparkle.

Magic...or had it just been the glittering eyeliner she'd suddenly become a fan of, the thing that had made her stick out in the crowd of agents (at least to him), who wore functional make-up in nude shades, suddenly as unique as her words and sweaters. But all still a mask. Just a shell on the outside, hiding whatever else he didn't know.

Tony liked thinking he knew her. Really knew her. He liked thinking she trusted him, that he would be the one she called when things fell apart. But that was...Gibbs...it was Micheal. It would never be him.

He pulled open the top drawer, spilling over with old Playboys and TV Guides, bookmarked with fast food wrappers and post-its that listed crucial numbers. Between pens and a half-open tube of Lifesavers, someone had wedged a foreign object, a clean, white, envelope, with a tight, thin, script outlining his name.

Tony's eyes fley right to it, his fingers hungrily ripping the seal, a return address sticker for a street and apartment number he had gotten to remember far too well over the past weeks. He didn't look up at the name. Didn't need to. Her touch, the soft and precise strokes of her writing clung to the envelope as he did, grappling and yearning for someone that just wasn't there...anymore. Tony read the letter, or note, really, a short little thing in the center of NCIS copy paper quickly, just like ripping a Band-Aid off a cut.

_Dear Tony,_

_Yesterday you told me that I am not in my country anymore and whatever I found acceptable there, is not tolerated in yours. I think perhaps you are right. If you are reading this, then you have probably either began cleaning your desk (How angry is Gibbs?) or you have learned about the entire mess I have put myself in. I have been thinking, and I believe there are some things I never said to you, because I never had the courage to, and for a time believed I had the freedom never to have to tell you these things. Why am I writing this? Why do you need to know? I don't know. Lately I don't know much of anything, but it is nearing time I decide where I truly belong and where my loyalties truly lie. I am sorry I hurt you. I am sorry for what my actions have caused and sorry for my mistakes. This will just end up crumpled in a crash bin but I needed to write it down, to see it in black and white. For me._

_Your Crazy Mossad Ninja Chick,_

_Ziva David_

He shoves it back in the drawer, far, far, back. Tony puts his head down on the desk, to keep from crying. He can see her signature, burned in his mind, Ziva signing off on case reports, writing a check for rent, doodling little knives around the elaborate curves of her handwriting when McGee would go off about the newest Mac model. He remembers giving her the name, but for a Crazy Mossad Ninja Chick, she'd sure learned to smile. And laugh. And see humanity buried deep in the superficial motives of their cases. Ziva was smiling at her reflection in the interrogation room mirror, laughing when Abby suggested Vance looked like a frog. Destroyed when Agent Lee's sister...no...he doesn't want to see another life their work has demolished. Sometime later, he realizes exactly what he needs. Abby Scutio.

She's sprawled across her desk, gazing teary-eyed at a serial number match, a superb and shining handgun, clutching Bert, when Tony comes through thous sliding double doors. She points it out to him. The same expensive model Ziva had cut out of a catalog and showed her, a few months ago, with a rakish grin and a promise she'd somehow get her hands on it, silly things like the economy be damned. Only Ziva, they agree.

So Abby sips Caf-Pow while Tony minimizes the match screen. How many times had he been in this same lad, with her at his side, Abby sharing some case-breaking discovery, McGee carefully moving his mouse closer to her hand. It's the things like that which hurt the most, because Ziva's leaving had signaled a sort of leaving of those moments to Abby. Things haven't been the same, and they haven't gotten a replacement shot right at the them like when Kate died. They have no new Ziva, no shadowy replacement that in time will form a solid comrade that will strike a harder blow when she leaves. Abby thinks the position is just bad luck.

Tony doesn't tell Abby about the note, but just lets her babble on about who knows what for a few minutes, a charade of perky happiness that does little to convince him, before the topic turns, like it has every time these past couple months, to Ziva David, whose presence Abby misses the most. She beats herself up over those few months, when she was nothing but terrible to their new teammate, as cold and heartless in truth as she'd called Ziva. Abby wonders if she was thinking about those moments when she stayed behind in Israel. Maybe Ziva thought she wasn't wanted, just another reason for her to leave.

Tony tells her that when Abby Scutio is cold and heartless, hell will freeze over, but given Global Warming, neither can happen. And she laughs back, just like old times. In a golden moment, nothing is different. Machines beep behind them, and the computer flashes through a set of prints. Agents trudge by in the hallway, balancing coffee cups and paperwork, phones in the other hand. The sun shines though the window, reflecting off flecks of a broken beer bottle not yet swept away on the sidewalk, where businessmen and crackheads and little girls who want their daddy home form his tour all walk together.

They meet each others eyes, reaching a solution, a mental lightbulb pops up and reminds them of what it seems they can't remember. Life goes on. You meet others along the way, try to help them, or hurt them, you love some, and you lose some. It's...cyclical, in Abby's mind. It's like spinning a ball with candy inside. Colors shift and change and nothing stays the same, but it settles. It'll be okay again, before another spin rocks them to the core. And they survive again. Even if the only way to do so is put on a mask, and fake it, then cry at night in your bed, before waking to accept the challenges of a new day, pushing through when you don't want them there, hiding the scars of yesterday that make you weaker.

So when Tony leaves, on his way back to the bullpen, swishing out those doors, Abby does think of Ziva, finding some other girl to show which gun she wants to, a friend that's more like her, one that won't call her cold and heartless, that she probably throws knives and shares body armor with, that speaks her language, instead of throwing strange looks her way and secretly searching her in spare time. Maybe Ziva feels wanted over there. Like she's really part of something, not just a square peg in a circle hole, which will fit through, though with a lot of struggle and bending plastic. Abby tries not to be too sad. If Ziva's happy, then it's her duty as a friend to be happy for her, even if those words, friends and duty, have elusive meanings she barely ever tries to comprehend...or to separate.

Back at his desk, Tony folds the letter neatly and puts it in a frame, behind a picture of he and the team, the one time Gibbs had enough bourbon in him to take them on a fishing trip. They're soaking wet, which is enough of a clue. Ziva is holding a trout, speared with a sharpened twig, at the camera like a trophy, radiant and mysterious at the same time. He allows himself to think of her now, still his Crazy Mossad Ninja Chick, showing all those guys who's boss, listening in with a smile to the ones who complain about Eli David. Probably flipped Boss Daddy off at least once. And when she's not kicking butt? She's sneaking seasick pills on the missions where they're on water, putting on eyeliner in a reflection of herself in a lake in the woods.

She's still Ziva, and no matter how lost she gets, and how much crap gets thrown at her, she firmly believes she is achieving something and making a difference, if it is purpose or vengeance that drives her, Tony knows that never changes. So whatever Mossad is up against better say their prayers.

These thoughts bring a foreign comfort to Tony DiNozzo, because though he still wishes she were here, he is happy thinking she's okay, she's alive and living her life. Maybe she's still finding herself, still learning exactly what and who she is. And he's okay with that. Because when she comes back (and she will) Ziva David will mess up her English and be obsessed with mustard and snap out a paperclip at him. Things come and go. Rock the boat. But there are some things that never change.


End file.
